Elsewhere in Constantinople, Count Louis of Blois was particularly interested in tracking down one prominent member of the former imperial entourage. His aunt, Agnes, had married Theodore Branas, a member of an important Byzantine family.
7
Several French nobles went to see Agnes; they showed her due respect and offered to serve her, but were met with complete hostility. Agnes’s husband had been part of Alexius III’s regime and, with his demise, her own standing was dramatically reduced; thanks to the crusaders she could no longer expect to be part of the ruling elite. She refused to talk to her visitors and then pretended that she was unable to speak French. Her nephew then introduced himself, although Robert of Clari does not reveal whether this promoted any amiability from the count’s aunt.
8
During the crusaders’ stay in Constantinople they came across peoples from lands they had never previously known. One day when the nobles were visiting the emperor, the king of Nubia arrived at the palace. Robert of Clari reported some curiosity about his black skin - as a northern Frenchmen, he was unlikely to have met individuals from the lands below Egypt—and, more remarkably to the knight, the presence of a cross branded onto the royal forehead. Prince Alexius gave the king a full and formal welcome, as befitted a royal visitor, and introduced him to the crusader nobles. Through interpreters they learned that the king had come to Constantinople as a pilgrim. He claimed that his own lands were 100 days’ journey beyond Jerusalem and that when he started out he had 60 companions; 50 of them had perished on the way to the holy city and now only one remained alive. After visiting Constantinople this intrepid man wanted to go to Rome, then on to Santiago di Compostela in northern Spain before returning to Jerusalem to die: a suitable resting place for such a pious and devoted pilgrim. The nobles learned that all Nubians were Christians and that when a child was baptised, he or she was branded with the sign of the cross. In all respects they were impressed with this visitor and, as Robert of Clari commented, ‘they gazed at this king with great wonder’.
9
As the crusaders began to relax over the following days, they started to behave as tourists and pilgrims, crossing over by bridge or barge into the great city to marvel at the palaces and churches. Constantinople was a true spiritual treasure chest. Villehardouin could hardly believe the number of relics contained in the city: ‘as many as in the rest of the world’, as he admiringly wrote.
10
For these tough, pious men, the sight of so many relics intimately connected with Christ’s life, such as parts of the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns, displayed in such stunning and opulent locations, would have stirred feelings of great devotion. They could venerate these objects and give the deepest thanks to God for delivering them safely thus far on their journey. The relics might also serve to remind them of the ultimate object of their campaign, the liberation of Christ’s patrimony. Alongside these spiritual matters, the practicalities of trade and exchange also took place and the Venetians doubtless assessed the commercial possibilities of their new-found ascendancy in the city.
For all their relief at the end of the siege, the westerners still regarded the Greeks with some suspicion. In an attempt to create greater security for the crusaders, the French and Venetians demanded that a long section of the city wall (perhaps about 320 feet, according to Robert of Clari) be demolished. This stark exposure of the innards of Constantinople was yet another blatant reminder of the crusaders’ uninvited presence.
11
The crusaders also had the opportunity to reflect on their achievement and to inform relatives and various interested parties in the West of their success. How would their conduct be received by the pope? Innocent had written to the crusaders in late June, making it plain that he did not want them to attack Constantinople except in particular circumstances and only with his, or his legate‘s, permission. He restated his hostile attitude towards the doge and his people and reminded the Venetians of their continued status as excommunicates. The pope expressed hope that the crusaders would behave well, or else they would not be like ‘a penitent, but a trickster, and a penitent returning to his sin is regarded as a dog returning to its vomit’.
12
Despite his mistrust of the Venetians, another letter from this time demonstrates Innocent’s recognition of a need to show flexibility if the crusade was to be kept on the move. He ruled that the French crusaders could sail on Venetian ships to the Levant, even though this would mean travelling on boats manned by excommunicates. However, if the doge’s men were not absolved by the time of war in the Levant, he ordered that the other crusaders should not fight alongside them or else they risked defeat. God would not look kindly on the battles of excommunicates and the other crusaders would suffer by association. Such was Innocent’s antipathy towards the doge that he even gave the crusaders leave to attack the Venetians if they impeded the expedition. He also gave them permission to rake necessary food from Byzantine lands whenever it was needed and as long as it was done ‘without hurting people’.
13
In spite of Innocent’s efforts to steer the crusade, the limitations of medieval communications were such that his instructions were often out of date by the time they reached the holy warriors. His letter of 10 August, written almost a month after Constantinople actually surrendered, was of a rather resigned tone. He knew that the expedition had gone to the Byzantine capital and lamented that the crusaders ‘seem to have neglected the relics of the Holy Land’.
14
These letters give us some insight into Innocent’s mind at the time and show his mistrust of the Venetians, his concern for the Crusader States and his worries about the direction of the expedition. The crusaders, therefore, had to attempt to reassure the pope in all of these matters. The missive of Hugh of Saint-Pol is the most detailed of the existing letters sent by the crusaders to the West after July 1203 and it shows the conquerors’ view of their recent achievements. At least four copies of his letter survive; others (since lost) were almost certainly sent, too.
As one of the crusade leaders, Hugh had much to tell. The news of the expedition’s diversion had spread through the courts of western Europe and, depending upon how the information had been relayed, it might well have portrayed the crusaders in a very negative light. In August 1203, in the immediate afterglow of victory when they were basking in God’s approval for their decision to go to Constantinople, Hugh had the perfect opportunity to put his side of the story. Aside from providing a splendid eye-witness account of the siege, the Frenchman vigorously asserted the spiritual merit of the crusaders’ actions and roundly criticised those who had left the army in the course of the campaign. His perspective is a compelling mixture of the devoted holy warrior and a man steeped in chivalric values. Most significantly, it shows the thoughts of an individual who still maintained one clear goal for the expedition: Jerusalem. There is no sense that Hugh had set out originally intending to capture Constantinople; rather, that he and his fellows had been obliged to follow that particular path in order to achieve their objective: the liberation of Christ’s patrimony.
After his description of the fall of Constantinople he rounded on those who had abandoned the crusade: ‘I especially want you to know this: Stephen of Perche, Reynald of Montmirail, Enguerrand of Boves ... Simon of Montfort ... and the abbot of Vaux[-Cernay] are creating great discord in the fleet. They are proceeding to Jerusalem ... and they have left our army and us in mortal danger.’
15
As well as the need to counter hostile propaganda, one can sense in Hugh’s words genuine anger at the decision of these men to strike off on their own.
Perhaps more of a diplomatic agenda lay behind his glowing endorsement of Doge Dandolo: ‘We truly have much to say in praise of the doge of Venice, a man, so to speak, who is prudent, discreet, and skilled in hard decision-making.’ Some people in the West, such as Pope Innocent III and, indeed, some on the crusade, such as Gunther of Pairis, saw the Venetians as greedy and solely motivated by money. From Hugh of Saint-Pol’s perspective, however, Dandolo’s excellent leadership skills and his often perceptive advice were worthy of fulsome praise and this testimony was an attempt to redress the simplistic and hostile picture some had of the doge.
Hugh also presented the core of his case as to why the diversion to Constantinople was justified. He had already mentioned the reasons for placing Prince Alexius on the throne and the financial inducements offered by the young man, but he had saved what he regarded as his best and most ‘glorious’ reason until the conclusion of the letter:
We carried on the business of Jesus Christ with His help, to the point that the Eastern Church (whose head is Constantinople), along with the emperor and his entire empire, reunited with its head, the Roman Pontiff ... acknowledges itself to be the daughter of the Roman Church. It also wishes, with humbled head, to obey the same more devoutly in the future—in accordance with normal custom. The patriarch himself, who desires and applauds this step, petitions all the way to the Roman See to receive the pallium of his office and on this issue, he along with the emperor swore a sacred oath to us.
In other words, Hugh was able to demonstrate that the holy warriors had acted properly because through their actions an enormous spiritual benefit had come to the Catholic Church. In theory, the schism of 149 years was over - surely this was a cause for celebration and congratulation ? In fact, Hugh was running ahead of himself: later events would show him to be wildly overoptimistic in his assessment of the Byzantines’ enthusiasm for their promised subjection.
Another reason to emphasise the scale of the crusaders’ achievements was that Hugh had to announce that the expedition would not be travelling on to the Holy Land until the following spring; again, a revelation that might open the crusaders to criticism. He explained that delay was unavoidable if they were to benefit from the young Alexius’s military support for the campaign in Egypt and argued that the scale of this backing was well worth waiting for. The crusaders and the emperor had already written threateningly to Sultan al-Adil (Saladin’s brother, known as Saphadin in the West) of Egypt, ‘the impious invader and occupier of the Holy Land’, informing him that the combined Christian forces would soon be attacking him. Hugh also expressed the hope that those in the Levant might take heart at this news and wait for help with renewed confidence.
One copy of Hugh’s letter - that sent to Count Henry of Louvain (who had taken part in the 1197-8 German Crusade) - contained an additional paragraph in which he urged men to join the expedition. This forthcoming Egyptian campaign is couched in highly chivalric terms: ‘You should also know that we have accepted a tournament against the Sultan of Babylon [Cairo] in front of Alexandria. If, therefore, anyone wishes to serve God (to serve him is to rule), and wishes to bear the distinguished and shining title of “knight”, let him take up the cross and follow the Lord, and let him come to the Lord’s tournament, to which he is invited by the Lord himself.’
16
This remarkable imagery fully integrates the knightly obsession with tournaments with the idea of the crusade. The invasion of Egypt is characterised as a tournament, called by God, and is presented as a magnificent opportunity for knightly deeds. Yet unlike normal tournaments fought for selfish motives, these deeds will be for the Lord’s sake. As a layman trying to convince others to take the cross, Hugh clearly believed that this emphasis on a more secular aspect of holy war was most likely to achieve the desired results. Perhaps this fusion of the tournament and the holy war provides some insight into the way in which the crusaders themselves, rather than the churchmen, viewed their activities.
17
Doge Dandolo also wrote a letter (now lost) in which he tried to explain the reasons for the attack on Zara—described by Innocent as ‘an outrage that is already notorious throughout almost the entire world’ - and to stress that the action at Constantinople was of certain benefit to the Catholic Church and the recovery of the Holy Land.
18
As the crusaders and the Byzantines grew accustomed to their new relationship, preparations got under way for the formal coronation of Prince Alexius. In recognition of the effort to move the Orthodox Church closer to Rome, the ceremony was set for 1 August, St Peter’s Day, when, amidst great pomp, the young man, now aged about 21, joined his father as ruler of the Byzantine Empire. Both Villehardouin and the letter written by the crusade leaders chose to omit the fact that Isaac reigned as co-emperor in Constantinople. This may have been because Isaac’s earlier alliance with Saladin meant that he would be viewed in a poor light in the West and the crusaders did not want the stigma of this old association to tarnish their present success. By focusing on Alexius IV - towards whom the crusaders always claimed to have acted properly -Villehardouin could more easily demonise him when he subsequently acted traitorously.
Soon after his coronation Alexius IV wrote to the pope with his own account of events and to add his own praise and thanks for the crusaders’ actions. We must remember that the two men had met in early 1202 when Innocent had turned down the young prince’s request for help. Alexius also wanted to add his positive gloss to the letters of Hugh of Saint-Pol and the doge to counter the derogatory comments made by those crusaders who had left the expedition at Zara and Corfu. Like Hugh, Alexius was desperately anxious to swing papal and western European opinion behind an expedition that many saw as utterly misguided and driven by avarice. This was a profoundly serious task and the crusaders and their ally worked tirelessly to redress their obvious disobedience to the pope at Zara, to stress their subsequent successes and to make clear how their work had indeed brought benefits to the Catholic Church.